My Research Lab!
Author: Alex Siebenmorgen Majors: Physics and Philosophy
My name is Alex Siebenmorgen, and I am a double majoring in Physics with a concentration in Astronomy, and Philosophy in the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences. During the Spring 2021 grant term, I worked on a research project with Dr. Bret Lehmer from the Department of Physics. The Spring of 2021 was my fourth semester of research on this project, and I hope to finish the project in the Fall of 2021 and publish a paper over it in the following semester.
In my project, I aim to create an accurate X-ray spectral model for galaxies that include X-ray binary sources. More specifically, I’m trying to produce a model that predicts how the number of photon counts and background photon counts on a telescope change as a function of luminosity in a variety of environments. The data I am using includes observations of young star-forming galaxies from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, which allows me to study the spectra of sources in the desired range of the electromagnetic spectrum. I have mainly been considering the spectra for high mass X-Ray binaries in different accretion states as they appear in nearby star-forming galaxies. I also plan to account for other properties, such as varying population ages and metal content to ensure that the final model is accurate for a wide variety of galaxies.
The project has some practical implications as it applies to the field of astronomy. With these spectral models, we can learn much more about the physical galaxy and how it developed. Recognizing a galaxy with a particularly low age and high star formation rate can provide us with a target for further research, which could supply more information about which accretion states were most prominent in the early universe and how exactly these X-ray binaries affected galactic development. The research is mainly completed on the computer, as it requires a lot of programming and data analysis to make the aforementioned models.
I specifically found Dr. Lehmer because he was one of the only faculty members working on an astronomy project and I had already met him before while touring the university. After I looked into his research projects, I found that his area of research was interesting, so I contacted him. I then chose my topic in a very straightforward way: by discussing it with Dr. Lehmer and choosing something within his area of expertise that I found interesting.
I have always enjoyed astronomy, so I was very excited to finally do some research in the field and learn more about it. I have genuinely learned a lot about the particulars of this topic, including many things about the physics of black holes and neutron stars, binary systems, coding in Python, and the functioning of telescopes. I have also learned things that are difficult to articulate here without the use of graphs and a lot of background knowledge. The same reason it is difficult to articulate also led to some problems when I began to work on this project, when I quickly realized that a full understanding of many of the things I was studying were still very far out of reach. Though I didn’t expect a walk in the park, the difference between the knowledge I had up to that point and the level of work I was doing was substantial. Working on something that I knew I would get stuck on was not quite an ideal situation, especially when the thing that impeded my progress was usually an easy fix for somebody who is more experienced. I was very lucky to have access to guidance from Dr. Lehmer and others in the group, who were all extremely helpful, especially when it came to programming issues and interpreting results. In the future, I am determined to complete my project well enough to submit it for publication, and in doing so contribute to the field of astronomy in a way that I can be proud of.
The Honors College Research Grant has allowed me to work on my project much more efficiently by allowing me to purchase a new computer that is able to run many of the modeling programs I needed to use. Without this, I would have to use these important programs in a much more roundabout way, and it has saved me a lot of headaches and unnecessary complications. I have been able to complete my research more efficiently, and I hope that I can build on the progress I’ve made to finish up my project and get started on the process of publication!